On Tue, 7 Jul 2009 13:13:40 -0700 Kyle Hamilton <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 11:44 AM, Ethan Grammatikidis<[email protected]> > wrote: > > On Tue, 07 Jul 2009 17:00:20 +0000 > > Opensource Obscure <[email protected]> wrote: > > > >> > >> At a first glance this is good news for Opensim users and > >> developers that use Linux. I'd like to hear comments, > >> especially from free-software advocates. > >> > >> Microsoft issues patent promise, dispels Mono legal concerns > >> from Ars Technica - http://bit.ly/BasCG or > >> http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/07/microsoft-issues-patent-promise-dispels-mono-concerns.ars > > > > Just wondering how binding this promise is. I guess MS couldn't break it > > without getting themselves bad press, but there's always a possibility of a > > company finding itself in a tight corner & thinking maybe it's worth > > breaking this. I find myself wondering if some, perhaps many big businesses > > are designed to run as if they're in a tight corner all the time. > > > I'm not a lawyer, but I've learned a lot from Groklaw. This is not > legal advice, simply my interpretation of what I've read :): > > The legal principle involved is called "estoppel" -- if you make a > promise not to sue someone for doing B, and then they in good faith > rely on that promise and do B, you can't go back on your word and sue > them for it anyway. If the promise was made by the rightsholder (and > the fact that they issued it as a press release in written form), if > they try, they will have the court rule against them. It's been this > way since before we had a legal system in the US, and imported > England's. Really good to know, thanks. :) > > (Technically, this is the same thing that a license is: you receive a > promise from the person who grants the license that they will not sue > you. It doesn't matter if you pay for it or not.) > > This "promise" can be looked at as a "license" as far as CLR runtimes > go: if someone tries to create a functional CLR implementation, they > have a license to any necessary patent claims that Microsoft holds > that must be infringed in order to adhere to the standard. This > license does not extend to non-CLR technologies, though. > > Again, IANAL. Check with an IP lawyer if you want to. Strong enough reasoning for me. *nod* -- Ethan Grammatikidis Those who are slower at parsing information must necessarily be faster at problem-solving. _______________________________________________ Opensim-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/opensim-users
